Adams County apples: hard cider, good intentions

Cider makers take pride in local ingredients.

Shane Doughty, director of off-site sales for Jack s Hard Cider, shows where the apples for the cider are grown locally at Conewago Orchards on Tuesday. (THE EVENING SUN SHANE DUNLAP)

There's beer and there's wine. And then there's hard cider.

But as two local hard cider makers will tell you: It's just as unique and complex as your favorite wines and craft beers.

Sitting on the same shelf, the two ciders look nothing like each other. Jack's Hard Cider is sold in red or green cans. Good Intent Cider is sold in thick glass bottles and resembles sparkling wine. Jack's is made in a large facility year-round; Good Intent is made three months out of the year in a garage.

But they both start with the same ingredient: apples grown from Adams County soil.

“You can't make great cider without great fruit,” said Shane Doughty, of Hauser Estate Winery, where Jack's Hard Cider is made.

Cider maker Adam Redding reflects on the genesis of the business he co-owns with his wife, Good Intent Cider, which is located outside of Gettysburg. (THE EVENING SUN CLARE BECKER)

Good Intent Cider and Jack's Hard Cider are the only hard ciders made in Adams County that are sold commercially, but Adam Redding, the maker of Good Intent Cider, said he expects more people to start making cider.

“The cider market is growing 10 percent per year,” Redding said. “And we live in a perfect area for this.”

Doughty said there's lots of loyal wine drinkers and loyal beer drinkers, but there will soon be loyal hard cider drinkers—cider will be its own market.

“It's the hottest beverage segment in the country,” he said.

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Three years ago, Jack's hard Cider was a much smaller operation, only selling directly out of the winery in Biglerville. Now the product is sold in six states including Georgia, Virginia and Florida. In the past three years, he said the cider production at Hauser has increased by 30 times.

Redding's Good Intent Cider is a much smaller operation. He hopes to make about 1,000 gallons of Good Intent Cider this year in the garage of his parents' house in Straban Township.

A can of original Jack s Hard Cider. (THE EVENING SUN SHANE DUNLAP)

Good Intent Cider started out as a college hobby for Redding, then he took a weeklong seminar at Cornell University on cider production and appreciation and got more serious about it. He sells the cider seasonally by the bottle and keg.

To make hard cider, first, the apples are pressed. Redding gets his apples pressed at Kimes Cider Mill in Bendersville. He figures he should focus on what he does best and let others grow the good apples.

Good Intent Cider ferments for a month in one or both of the tanks in the garage, then is put through a filter. Redding said many homemade ciders have a yeasty taste, but filtering the cider gets rid of that as well as any pulpiness.

Then, Redding stores the wine in huge plastic bags inside of drums for a month. After that, the cider is transferred back to the tanks to add carbonation and cane sugar. Then the cider is bottled and pasteurized.

Redding said cider can only be sold by a beer distributor if the percentage of alcohol by volume is under five and a half percent.

This is an issue, he said, because apples are sweet—the more sugar, the higher percentage of alcohol.

So, Redding markets to wine drinkers. The two varieties of cider he sells are 10 percent alcohol by volume, so he doesn't recommend serving it in a large plastic cup. He sells to restaurants seasonally and brought a keg of the cider to a recent family wedding. Hauser Estate Winery will produce over 100,000 gallons of cider this year, all made from apples in the 400-acre apple orchard nearby.

At Hauser Estate Winery, the apples are transported from the nearby orchard and pressed on site in a machine. The cider runs through a hose from the machine to inside where it sits in 5,000-gallon tanks for a week to stabilize. After that it ferments for two weeks in the tanks in the warehouse.

Jack's Hard Cider gets some taste adjustments after the two-week fermentation period and fresh apple juice is added for sweetness and to lower the percentage of alcohol by volume down to about five and a half percent. Then it is filtered through a large machine, carbonated and put into cans.

“When you ferment an apple, it typically comes out at seven to eight percent alcohol by volume,” Doughty said.

Many large cider producers add water to reduce the percentage, but Jack's Hard Cider has some added juice instead.

But neither cider is arguably better than the other—Redding doesn't consider Jack's Hard Cider to be his competitor because his cider appeals more to wine drinkers.

Despite differing methods, consumer bases and capabilities, both cider makers take pride in the quality of the cider and how it all comes from Adams County.

“We're one of the only cider companies out there where the first ingredient listed is apples,” Doughty said. Many other cider companies use concentrated cider and add water, he said.

“It's like this person I've created and I have to raise,” Redding said. “But I don't see leaving my day job any time soon.”